Like other regional towns across Australia, Kingaroy in Queensland's South Burnett is in the grip of a doctor shortage.
But for mother-of-two Tia Muir, the two-month waitlist for her family is now "beyond a joke" and she fears things are about to get worse as several doctors prepare to leave town.
"It's very frustrating and difficult to book an appointment at the moment," she said.
"With Kingaroy Medical Centre, it was an eight-week wait last time and now with my usual doctor leaving I've had to change practices and it's a five-week waitlist to get in there.
There are seven medical clinics for a population of more than 10,300 in Kingaroy, but Ms Muir said many practices were not taking on new patients.
"Or they don't bulk bill and now I've basically got to travel to 20 kilometres to Nanango to see a doctor," she said.
She said her only other option was to visit the local hospital, but she did not want to cause a further strain on emergency services.
Difficult to compete
Kingaroy Medical Centre will soon have no permanent GPs on staff as two prepare to relocate to other regions.
Rural Health Management Services Project Officer for Kingaroy Laura Terry said retirements over the past few years had left gaps that were difficult to permanently fill.
"The issues are complex and nuanced but highlighting a few things," Ms Perry said.
"Many doctors who work in rural Australia are international graduates and with our COVID border closures we have not been able to recruit any international health workers for the better part of the past two years."
She said the GPs who were left were facing burnout.
"They're taking on more responsibility to meet patients' needs because of the staff shortages," she said.
Ms Terry pointed to the federal government's rural classification system as another major issue.
"Why we're battling at the moment to get GPs, particularly in the Kingaroy and South Burnett area, is because there's been a new classification of rural general practice," she said.
A Distribution Priority Area (DPA) identifies locations with a shortage of medical practitioners, allowing towns to recruit overseas-trained doctors and use scholarship programs to entice doctors to work there.
Ms Terry said places like Kingaroy could not compete against other more desirable locations.
"So then the doctor would of course rather go and work in Noosa."
Ms Terry's practice isn't the only one in town struggling to find a permanent GP.
Matthew Chudley has been trying to recruit an additional doctor for Ochre Clinic in Kingaroy for a year.
"Clearly someone needs to fix the visa situations, it's gotten progressively more difficult," he said.
"If the country's unemployment rate is about 4 per cent, then we need to look outside Australia for those doctors."
Mr Chudley said it was a national issue that was only going to worsen.
General practice in crisis
The Deloitte General Practice workforce report revealed that by 2030 the demand for GPs in Australia would rise by 17.6 per cent in the regions and 47 per cent in major cities.
One of the reasons is an ageing workforce, with the report finding the workforce would lose about 1,500 GPs to retirement in the next three years.
Rural Doctors Association past president John Hall said general practice in Australia was in crisis.
The patient rebate for GP services has been frozen since 2014, after initially being introduced as a temporary budget savings measure by the then-Labor government.
"[It has] had a massive impact on essentially the financial viability of general practice as a business, but also the attractiveness of general practice as a specialty for individual doctors," Dr Hall said.
A federal Department of Health spokesperson said the Sunshine Coast was not classified as a DPA.
"The government committed $146 million during the election to support initiatives to attract and retain more health workers to rural and regional Australia through improving training and incentive programs and supporting development of innovative models of multidisciplinary care, and has already started work on implementing this commitment," the spokesperson said.
"For instance, Australian Government GP incentive payments or bulk billing incentive items under Medicare are higher for locations like Kingaroy compared with locations like the Sunshine Coast."
Dr Hall said it was vital the new federal government went further in securing future GPs than the last.
"More investment in training towards rural and remote medical practice through a program called the National Rural Generalist Pathway," he said.
"We need to see some significant funding reform around Medicare and funding, particularly in rural and remote areas."
